an unexpected light
by bravevulnerability
Summary: 'It had been an accident. Nothing more than an accident.' Post-ep of sorts for 6x23, For Better or For Worse.


**A/N: This spontaneous little creation was born from the loads of excitement and speculation swirling around in my brain for the season 7 premiere tomorrow. It's short, and raw, and hopefully not too dreadful to read. Enjoy? x**

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><p>The darkness consumes. She floats in it, treads water, sinks. Stays. The emptiness of it cocoons her, keeps her from spending too much time awake; it caresses and soothes her like he no longer can. So she stays, forces her head above water when Dr. Burke urges her out of it, forcing her to talk, to write. Burke insists it will be good for her, insists that she write about anything she wants, real or fiction. But she was never the writer in this story.<p>

Kate stares at the journal in her lap, the pen dangling in her fingers - the tools her trustworthy doctor encourages her to use at least once a week - but she can't will herself to write anything down. What else is there to say? She isn't supposed to be here, hadn't purposefully done anything to be confined within this place, in these four walls. It had been an accident. Nothing more than an accident.

She hadn't actually wanted to kill herself. She hadn't meant to drink herself unconscious and slice her wrist with glass.

Had she?

No. Well, maybe the unconscious part, but nothing more. She had just been drunk. Really drunk. She's done it before. But this time had been so much worse.

So much blood. So much vodka. Her floor had been covered in a pool of the mixture along with shards of broken glass because somewhere in that blurry memory she had dropped the bottle she'd been drinking from and then fallen on the shattered sea of it, slicing the side of her wrist, abrading her palms when she tried to lift herself, and eventually giving in to sleep in the middle of the mess on her living room floor.

She hadn't meant to lose herself that night. She had been holding it together rather well while she'd been staying with his family in the loft. She wasn't _doing_ well, but she had been surviving. But then she had gone to her apartment, just for one night, just to be alone for one single night. And everything had fallen apart.

Ryan had been the one to find her, to carry her out and keep her alive until paramedics had arrived. Poor sweet Ryan. She suspects the boys had devised a system ever since Castle's disappearance, taking turns checking up on her, and when she hadn't answered her phone during Ryan's shift, he had called Alexis. When the youngest Castle told him that Kate was at her apartment, alone, he had gone to investigate and when she hadn't answered the door, he had assumed the worst. And he had been right.

They'd checked her into the rehab facility the next morning for her own safety and she hadn't had a will to fight any of them on it. But she was supposed to be looking for him. Castle. He was out there, she still fervently believed that. He was alive somewhere, waiting for her to save him like she's supposed to, and yet here she is. Trapped because of an idiotic night of drinking and grieving in her apartment. He's been gone for two months. She's been here for two weeks. She's failed him.

"Miss Beckett." The soft voice of her assigned nurse appears in the doorway, but Kate doesn't look up. "You have a visitor."

She closes her eyes and tightens her fingers around the pen before taking a breath and setting the items down in front of her. She knows it's Alexis. Or Martha. Maybe even Lanie. The boys don't come often. She knows they're working hard for her, trying to find Castle while she can't. She secretly fears the day Esposito or Ryan come to visit her here. It could mean they've found something… or that they haven't, that they've finally come to the conclusion they won't, and she's starting to believe that the latter will always be more likely. "C'mon, Kate," the nurse coaxes gently, closing a careful hand around her thin arm as she rises too slowly from the bed.

She can't eat. At first the staff believed it to be her own form of defiance, flat out refusal to ingest a meal, but it didn't take long for them to realize it wasn't intentional at all. Her body had shut down in the same way when her mother had died, hunger eluding her, the thought of food making her nauseous and leaving her to wither. This was no different, if not worse. Her body had wilted, strong and toned muscles turned to skin that hangs from her bones. Most days she can stomach a few crackers, one of those smoothies from the cafeteria. Usually though, she's stuck on an IV that stands like quiet company at her bedside each night.

Her spine cracks as she gets to her feet and she wonders if her bones are as brittle as she feels, if one day they'll finally snap with her sanity. The nurse, Andrea, she thinks, leads her out of her room, into the long hallway and Kate winces at the window they pass, at the foreign burn of the sunshine in her eyes. Her usual attire of sweats and a hoodie engulf her, everything too large, and the length of the pants trip her up. She doesn't have much grace to begin with these days and she stumbles as she walks with Andrea to the visitor's center, mumbling apologies as they grow closer, trying to turn the rasp of her voice into something more presentable.

"Kate." Andrea stops her before they can walk through the entrance. The kind woman pushes Beckett's limp hair back from her face and Kate flinches away out of reflex. Sometimes when Martha comes by, she indulges his mother, allows her to brush the dull waves of Kate's hair with the comb on the nightstand Kate never touches. Sometimes her almost mother-in-law ties it in a simple braid, other times she becomes creative - trying out ridiculous hairstyles that make Alexis giggle and even Kate cracking a ghost of a smile. But other than the gentle brush of Martha's fingers, the soft squeeze of Alexis' hand, the tender embrace of her father's arms - she doesn't like to be touched. "You're going to be okay," Andrea murmurs, a hint of a smile on her lips, but Kate only frowns in return.

_Okay_ does not exist in her mental dictionary. Not anymore. People have been telling her she would be okay for years, ever since she was 19 and orphaned, one parent buried in the dirt, the other in a bottle. She was okay for a little while - he made life better than 'okay' - but no more. Not now, never again. She's never been a quitter, never been one to give up, but he's gone and she's so tired, so very tired of fighting. She's done.

Beckett offers the compassionate nurse a shrug of her shoulder in lieu of a real response and shuffles through the swinging door at the woman's insistence.

Her eyes are on the ground out of habit, glazed over as she stares at her shoes.

"Kate."

Alexis then. It's hard on her when the girl visits. She really wishes she could be more for her, more like her even. Alexis has been a pillar of strength and hope since the beginning, only giving in to the stress and fear of her father's disappearance in her rare moments of weakness.

Kate had expected the younger woman to look down on her in disgrace when she ended up here, for being so weak and useless, but his daughter had surprised her, proving relentlessly supportive throughout this hellish two week ordeal, visiting Kate every other day, bringing her clothes and comforts from home. Like Castle's hoodie. The one she wears practically every day now.

But the hands that come to a rest on her shoulders are not the delicate fingers of Alexis. They're heavy, warm and broad. Familiar.

She doesn't dare believe it, hope for it, but oh she does. She wants it to be him so badly even though it's impossible-

"Kate."

Her eyes snap up so quick it makes her sockets ache, but it's him. Richard Castle alive and staring down at her with wide eyes that are wet with tears, lifting the hands from her shoulders to touch her cheeks, cradling her face and wiping her own tears away.

"Oh, Kate."

Her hands are quivering as she lifts them to his chest, palming the place above his heart, feeling the steady thrum of life before traveling upwards to cup his neck in her hands. He's real, not a dream or a hallucination. Real.

"Castle."

She feels dizzy, her vision slanting, and she clutches for him, surges forward and holds as tightly as she can, closing her eyes as his arms circle at her back, gathering her into his chest, muffling her sobs. His fingers dig into her back, his arms crush her, grind her bones together and steal the air from her lungs, but she barely notices the dull flares of pain, only relishes in the feel of him alive and encompassing her.

Somehow they both end up in a pile on the ground, his back against the closest wall, her entire body a crumpled mess in his lap. She hears the gentle voice of Alexis a few feet away, hears two sets of footsteps making a quiet exit, and she almost wants to apologize to his daughter, ensure her that she doesn't have to go, but she can't find the will to offer attention to anyone but him.

"I'll tell you everything," he croaks out, his lips against her ear, his tears falling on her cheeks. "I promise, Kate, I'll-"

"I thought you were gone," she cries, thoughtlessly splaying fingers at his cheek, scratching at the stubble there, craving the warm skin of him beneath her touch. "I was so scared you were really gone, that I lost you-"

"Never," he swears, pressing his lips against her forehead. Castle's knees lift, curling her body impossibly close, stroking his fingers through her hair a little too fast to be a comfort, but she doesn't care. She wants to know what happened, where he went and how the hell he's here, but she can wait. She'll wait, she'll do anything, as long as she can keep this, keep him. "Never leaving you alone."


End file.
